World Blitz Championship day one: Anand leads

11/16/2009 – World Champion Vishy Anand, who turns forty in just under a month, is leading this event with 12.0/14 points, two more than his nearest rival Magnus Carlsen. Behind the Norwegian we find a big surprise figure (hint: he is almost twenty years older than Anand), followed by Vladimir Kramnik and Alexander Grischuk. A photo report will follow, here for now are the results and games.

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World
Blitz Championship

This event is being held on November 16, 17 and 18 in the showroom of the Red
Square mall GUM. Time controls are three minutes for the whole game + two seconds
increment per move.

The event is a 22-player double round-robin, i.e. it has a total of 42 rounds,
which are played on three days. The participants include the players from the
Tal Memorial, plus twelve invitees:

Participants of the Tal Memorial

No.

Player

Nat.

1

Magnus Carlsen

NOR

2

Viswanathan Anand

IND

3

Levon Aronian

ARM

4

Vladimir Kramnik

RUS

5

Boris Gelfand

ISR

6

Peter Svidler

RUS

7

Peter Leko

HUN

8

Alexander Morozevich

RUS

9

Vassily Ivanchuk

UKR

10

Ruslan Ponomariov

UKR

Additional players

11

Sergey Karjakin

12

Vugar Gashimov

13

Shakhriyar Mamedyarov

14

Evgeny Bareev

15

Vladislav Tkachiev

16

Zhou Jianchao

17

Anatoly Karpov

12th World Champion

18

Alexandra Kosteniuk

Women's World Champion

19

Leinier Dominguez

Current World Blitz Champion

20

Alexander Grischuk

2006 World Blitz Champion

21

Dmitri Jakovenko

22

Judit Polgar

The event started with a tremendous showing by World Champion Viswanathan Anand,
who scored 12 points in 14 games (ten wins, four draws). His performance: 3022!
In second place we have Magnus Carlsen, who won nine games, lost three (one
against Alexandra Kosteniuk) and drew two. Magnus' performance: 2860.

In third place we find not Kramnik, Grischuk, Aronian or Ivanchuk but (would
you believe it) Anatoly Karpov, twelfth World Champion and now 58 years old.
"Tolya" scored 9.0/14, with five wins, eight draws and only one loss.
Amongst his victims was Magnus Carlsen, who lost to Karpov in round 14 in 74
moves.

Cross tables after 14 (of 42) rounds

No.

Player

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

Pts

1

Anand

X

=

1

1

1

=

1

1

=

=

1

1

1

1

1

12.0

2

Carlsen

X

0

1

1

1

1

1

1

=

1

0

=

1

1

0

10.0

3

Karpov

1

X

=

=

0

=

=

=

1

=

=

1

1

1

=

9.0

4

Kramnik

=

0

X

0

0

1

1

1

1

1

0

1

=

=

1

8.5

5

Grischuk

0

0

=

X

1

=

1

1

0

=

=

1

1

=

1

8.5

6

Karjakin

0

0

=

0

X

1

1

=

1

1

=

=

0

1

1

8.0

7

Bareev

0

0

1

1

0

X

1

=

1

0

0

1

=

1

1

8.0

8

Ponomariov

=

0

=

=

0

X

1

=

=

1

1

1

1

=

0

8.0

9

Ivanchuk

0

0

1

0

0

X

1

1

0

0

1

1

=

1

1

7.5

10

Svidler

0

=

=

0

=

0

X

1

0

1

0

1

1

1

1

7.5

11

Aronian

0

0

=

=

0

0

X

1

0

=

1

1

1

1

1

7.5

12

Leko

=

0

0

0

=

1

1

0

X

1

=

=

=

1

=

7.0

13

Morozevich

=

0

=

0

0

1

1

0

X

=

1

0

1

0

1

6.5

14

Gashimov

0

1

0

0

1

0

=

=

=

X

1

1

=

=

0

6.5

15

Polgar

1

1

1

0

0

0

=

0

0

X

0

1

=

0

1

6.0

16

Naiditsch

=

0

=

0

0

0

1

1

0

X

1

0

1

1

0

6.0

17

Dominguez

0

=

=

=

=

=

0

0

0

1

0

X

0

1

1

5.5

18

Jakovenko

=

0

0

0

=

0

0

=

1

=

0

X

1

0

1

5.0

19

Tkachiev

0

0

0

0

=

=

0

0

0

=

1

1

X

1

0

4.5

20

Gelfand

0

=

=

1

0

0

0

=

0

0

0

0

X

1

1

4.5

21

Mamedyarov

0

0

0

0

0

1

0

0

1

0

0

1

1

0

X

4.0

22

Kosteniuk

0

1

=

0

0

0

0

0

=

1

0

1

0

0

X

4.0

Standings after 14 rounds

No.

Sd.

Player

Nat.

Rtng.

Pts

wins

SB

1

20

Anand, Viswanathan

IND

2788

12.0

10

79.00

2

19

Carlsen, Magnus

NOR

2801

10.0

9

70.00

3

17

Karpov, Anatoly

RUS

2619

9.0

5

56.50

4

5

Kramnik, Vladimir

RUS

2772

8.5

7

55.75

5

12

Grischuk, Alexander

RUS

2736

8.5

6

52.50

6

16

Karjakin, Sergey

UKR

2723

8.0

6

49.75

7

8

Bareev, Evgeny

RUS

2634

8.0

7

53.50

8

11

Ponomariov, Ruslan

UKR

2739

8.0

5

54.25

9

4

Ivanchuk, Vassily

UKR

2739

7.5

7

47.00

10

10

Svidler, Peter

RUS

2754

7.5

6

46.00

11

1

Aronian, Levon

ARM

2786

7.5

6

40.25

12

3

Leko, Peter

HUN

2752

7.0

4

46.75

13

9

Morozevich, Alexander

RUS

2750

6.5

5

44.75

14

6

Gashimov, Vugar

AZE

2758

6.5

4

45.25

15

21

Polgar, Judit

HUN

2680

6.0

5

39.75

16

18

Naiditsch, Arkadij

GER

2689

6.0

5

36.75

17

15

Dominguez Perez, Leinier

CUB

2719

5.5

3

36.25

18

2

Jakovenko, Dmitry

RUS

2736

5.0

3

29.75

19

14

Tkachiev, Vladislav

FRA

2642

4.5

3

27.00

20

22

Gelfand, Boris

ISR

2758

4.5

3

27.75

21

13

Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar

AZE

2719

4.0

4

23.50

22

7

Kosteniuk, Alexandra

RUS

2517

4.0

3

30.50

The World Blitz Championship round two covered on the official site's web
cam. You will spot Carlsen vs Kramnik (1-0), Anand vs Ivanchuk (1-0) and Bareev
vs Karjakin (Karjakin won) in the pictures. You can watch the archived live
stream here
(click on the image on the top left and then on the enlarge button for full
screen).

Links

The games are being broadcast live on the official web site and on the
chess server Playchess.com.
If you are not a member you can download the free PGN reader ChessBase
Light, which gives you immediate access. You can also use the program
to read, replay and analyse PGN games. New and enhanced: CB Light 2009!

See also

12/30/2017 – The "King Salman World Blitz & Rapid Championships 2017" in Riyadh from Decemer 26th to 30th. At the half way point of the Blitz Championship, the defending champ Sergey Karjakin leads with 9 / 11. Maxime Vachier-Lagrave is a half point back followed by Peter Svidler and a trio of Chinese: Wang, Ding and Yu on 8 / 11. In the Women's Pia Cramling has a full point lead with 9½ / 11. Watch live with Rounds 11 to 22 from 12:00 Noon CET (6:00 AM EST) on Saturday with commentary by E. Miroshnichenko & WGM K. Tsatsalashvili.

See also

12/6/2017 – Imagine this: you tell a computer system how the pieces move — nothing more. Then you tell it to learn to play the game. And a day later — yes, just 24 hours — it has figured it out to the level that beats the strongest programs in the world convincingly! DeepMind, the company that recently created the strongest Go program in the world, turned its attention to chess, and came up with this spectacular result.

Video

Former World Champion Mikhail Botvinnik liked to play the French and once described it as a 'difficult and dangerous opening'. But in this 60 minutes video IM Andrew Martin suggests an aggressive and little-used idea of the renowned attacking player GM Viktor Kupreichik to counter the French: 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 c5 4.c3 Nc6 5.Be3!?. Andrew Martin uses the games of Kupreichik to show why this line could catch many French aficionados unprepared and is very dangerous for Black. Attacking players will love this line and the unusual complications that it promotes.